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Influence and Control in the Service Interaction

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The Service Providers

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Abstract

The need for personal control is a universal human motivation, yet the service provider’s need for control is challenged by both the organization and the customer. The organization seeks to control the encounter through its policies, procedures and supervision, while customers use the opportunity to satisfy their control needs through their participation in the service process.1 The service encounter is described as ‘a three-cornered fight’, with the customer, the service provider and the service organization struggling for control.2 Thus, it has been argued that in interactive service work, issues of power and control must be analyzed with simultaneous regard to all three parties.3 Such an analysis is based on the assumption that the parties have interests that sometimes bring them into alliance and sometimes into opposition vis-à-vis the other two parties. Each party’s success in achieving control depends in part on the balance of interests of all three parties.3

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Notes

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  1. Dana Yagil
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© 2008 Dana Yagil

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Yagil, D. (2008). Influence and Control in the Service Interaction. In: The Service Providers. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230582675_3

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